Word Choice features original works of fiction and poetry. Read three poems by Emily Pettit with art by Lisa Congdon, selected by Daniel Moysaenko.

Calibrating One’s Certainty Level to the Strength of Evidence

A trailer, a pyramid. How did you get there?
A road that travelers take. What someone wants
is for you to believe in that someone. Someone.
In the shade to stammer. Omitted but understood.
I take my postcards to the post office. I take
my suitcase to the station. My boat is moving away
from your boat. My boat to an edge. Your boat
to a different edge. How many edges does a pyramid
have? It depends on the number of sides.
The processing power of a brain that might lead
eyes to see buildings that look like boats. Conflicting
information collected. Calibrating one’s certainty level
to the strength of evidence, of enduring uncertainty
for long stretches of time. To see transportation
as transformation. Serenity please! Subtraction
to tell time. Associations of opposites. Associations
of sound. To remember is a sort of repetition.
I do not want to remember. What to remember.

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